British Council. BBC.

Teaching English

Classroom Action Research:

A Professional Development Process
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/virdian/classroom-action-
research-a-professional-development-process

Teachers who have experienced teaching for many years and for
many different levels will find it easy to cope with problems in a
classroom.

They already have equipped themselves with various teaching techniques

and methodologies. Therefore, they seem to have confidence in their
performance in class, to have answers for questions asked by students, and to
master the classroom entirely. However, a novice teacher will have a hard
time when he or she is assigned to teach a class which requires him or her to
be creative. But in this entry, I will not talk about the differences between the
experienced teachers versus the unexperienced ones. More likely, I will talk
about one of the ways that can help teachers to develop themselves
professionally, that is by doing an Action Research.

What is Action Research?

Kurt Lewin, in his paper “Action Research and Minority Problems” (1946),
described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and
effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action”
that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning,
action, and fact-finding about the result of the action”. Action research process
embarks on a problem finding, and then formulating possible actions for
the problem, applying an action, and finally evaluating on the outcome of
the action. These activities go round in a circle. Sometimes, we should repeat
the process until we can get the desired behaviour.

Action research can be done in any situations, including a classroom. Action

research can range from a small-scalled research to a very meticulous
one. It can either apply a quantitative or a qualitative approach, or both.
The result of the research can be anything (a success or a failure of the action).
The methods of gathering data can be as simple as an observation to more
complex one like a questionnaire.

Why Action Research?

Maybe the answer is; "Why NOT?". It is very advisable for teachers that
they know how to conduct action research. In the institution where I
teach, action research has been encouraged to be done by every
teacher. We have a yearly seminar for that cause and the result is very
satisfying. Teachers from all over joint operations throughout the country flock
to the seminar and sent their papers every year.

By doing action research a teacher is actually developing him/herself.

Why so? As suggested in Lewin's definition about action research, the research
is done in a series of planning, execution, and evaluating the feedback of
action. Therefore, a teacher has to explore in his or her knowledge about how
to act to solve a classroom problem. In other word, he or she will make a quest
to find out the answer.

What is the relation between doing action research and

professional development?

Not many teacher is likely to know what to do in classroom especially

when he/she is faced with a problem or problems. The teacher mostly will
turn to more senior teachers for help. It does solve the problem. However,
the solution given by others cannot be personalized in a particular class
sometimes. The teacher has to find out what was wrong and how to get
it right.

In addition, doing action research can help improve the teacher's self-
esteem. Documented action research can be one source of solving problem.
It also helps develop the teacher's repertoire. Finally, the teacher can use
action research he or she has done to help others whenever they have
difficulties. In short, when we help others, we help ourselves, right?